Haverford Finishes Second Overall at 80th Annual NIWFAS
2/23/08 - Haverford won the award for the top DIII team.
NEW YORK, N.Y. - The Haverford women’s fencing team had its best ever finish Saturday at the National Intercollegiate Women's Fencing Association 80th annual championships, placing second behind NCAA DI powerhouse Temple University and garnering the award for Top NCAA DIII team.
To clinch the win, the foil squad finished fifth, the sabre squad took third, and the epee squad finished second, nearly knocking off Temple in a closely contested, heated match in the 12th round of play. Fourteen teams competed in Saturday’s tournament, four short of the 18 total member teams, due to wintry conditions hampering the travel of some Massachusetts teams. Along the way, Haverford knocked off rivals Drew and Johns Hopkins. Haverford had suffered close losses to both teams earlier in the season, but pulled it together at the Conference Championship behind the stellar play of Halli Melnistky, who once again went undefeated in team play. Emma Buckingham went 9-2 in epee team play, and then fought her way to the silver medal in the individual rounds which wound out the grueling day.
Melnitsky also fell to the eventual champion from Temple, finishing out 5th in the individual. Junior Melanie Preston finished sixth in the epee, and freshman foilist Amanda Levinson made the finals, coming in eighth. Senior sabrist Dana Litowitz had a winning record in the sabre "B" strip, and capped off the day with a nomination to the NIWFA all-academic team. Contributions from every fencer led to this historic moment in Fords fencing history.
Foilists Rebecca Church, Monica Kishore, and Lara Pollack, sabrists Kelsey Cantwell and Sarah Turkus, and epeeists Vanessa Pena and Jill Geratowski all fought to give the Haverford fencing team the wins it needed to pull off this upset.
The NIWFA is the oldest intercollegiate athletic association for any sport for women, and its championship has been contested every year for 80 years.
Next up for the Fords are the NCAA Regionals on Saturday, March 1 at Drew University.